


Last Throw of the Dice

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Apocafic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-26
Updated: 2011-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do you go when the world is ending and you have nowhere else to go? You go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Throw of the Dice

Where do you go when the world is ending and you have nowhere else to go? You go home. And since Jack has been his home since that first trip to Abydos, Daniel points the car north and heads for Minnesota.

It’s a long journey.

He smiles. The analogy is so apt. They’ve taken two decades to get precisely nowhere, well, nowhere near where they should have gotten.

They slept together a grand total of twice; once after that messy crap with the Eurondans, and it wasn’t good or happy so they pretended it never happened, and once after Sam was lost on The Hammond, and it was good, so _very_ good, but it was also sad and filled with too much complicated stuff that neither of them could talk about just then.

Jack has lost two wives, Daniel one. He isn’t keeping score but he notes it in passing. He’s noting a lot of things, compiling a list that comprises the sum of Daniel Jackson’s life. He won’t write it down --there’ll be no one to read it – but he feels his life, for all its failings and shortcomings, should be acknowledged and documented before it ends.

The day is hot. All days are hot and getting hotter, and he takes a drink of water as the miles pass. He feels tired but not restless. He’s made his decision. Jack made his years ago when he walked away from the service and into reclusive retirement after Sam’s death. 

Daniel switches on the radio, which is either static-filled because of cosmic interference or filled with useless survival information that is little better than Duck and Cover. He switches it off. He’s not in the mood for music. What would he play that wouldn’t move him beyond endurance and reduce him to tears? He has no time or patience for tears, so he notes instead that the witterings of Budge will finally be erased from history. Every cloud has a silver lining. He laughs out loud and lets the hot wind carry the sound away. He’s glad he has a convertible, so useful in the searing heat of the dying planet’s last days.

The brightest and best have left the building. Daniel could have gone with.  But they have his precious knowledge and his blessing, and life without Jack isn’t life at all, and Jack isn’t going. It’s ironic that it’s taken the end of everything for him to realise that Jack _is_ everything.

He’s taking a gamble. Jack doesn’t know he’s coming. Jack will be pissed and will rage at him for not leaving. He’s willing to put up with that, just so long as Jack lets him stay for however long they have. It will be worth it.

Half way to Minnesota, he stops the car beside a small lake and fills the gas tank from one of the spare canisters in the trunk. He sits by the water under the shade of a tree and eats a power bar from a stash of rations left in a box outside the door of his apartment. There was no note, but the box arrived the day after he made the decision not to leave Earth. He thinks it was left by Mitchell, who _has_ left. Vala went her own way years ago without saying goodbye, which pisses him off to this day. Teal’c is out there somewhere. They should have kept in closer touch. He hopes against hope they're all going to be okay.

He closes his eyes and drifts for a while. It’s peaceful. There’s little traffic.

After half an hour, feeling more rested, he gets back in the car and starts counting the miles. He also counts the people he’s loved in his life, _really_ loved. It’s a small number and that doesn’t surprise him; his parents, Sha’uri, Kasuf and Skaara, Sam, Teal’c and Vala.

He loves Mitchell but in a more removed, distant way. With the benefit of distance, he realizes he hasn't allowed himself to love Mitchell in the way they both might have wanted. He thinks that’s a little unfair on Mitchell. He loves Sarah in much the same way. He once thought he loved her enough for them to be together, but she loved the _idea_ of him more than him, and Daniel has always been an all-or-nothing kind of guy.

He’s had nothing of Jack. Now, he wants it all.

It’s early evening when he finally finds the track leading to the cabin after a couple of false starts. One track he tried was a dead end. The day is full of analogies.

He pulls the car up to the side of the small building and switches off the engine. He opens the door and steps out, stretching the kinks out of his aching body and pulling the sweaty, sticky shirt from his back. His heart is beating wildly.

He stands beside the car, suddenly unsure, overwhelmed by what it will mean if Jack slams the door in his face.

Eventually, after what feels like a lifetime, the cabin door opens. Jack leans against the frame. He looks little different from the last time Daniel saw him, five years ago. His face is tanned, perhaps a little more lined, and the stubble is grayer than Daniel remembers. He’s wearing faded jeans, sandals and a black T-shirt that may or may not be military issue. He looks more handsome, more beautiful, more _Jack,_ than ever.

Jack tilts his head to one side and purses his lips.

The Minnesota silence is deafening.

Daniel is sure Jack must be able to hear his heart thumping.

Finally, just when Daniel thinks he’s made the biggest mistake in a life riddled with them, Jack pushes off from the open doorway.

“What kept you?” he asks, voice a little croaky and dry through lack of use, and turns to go back inside.

There are a thousand answers to that, and not one of them matters.

Daniel lets out a ragged breath. He thinks his legs might give way, so he moves them before it happens.

At end of the world, he thinks he might have found his beginning.

 

ends


End file.
